


hurt you more than it hurts me

by casey_sms (shinygreenwords), shinygreenwords



Category: The Social Network
Genre: Aftercare, Angst, Caning, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Past Child Abuse, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-18
Updated: 2011-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:26:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinygreenwords/pseuds/casey_sms, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinygreenwords/pseuds/shinygreenwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post-depositions and after the settlement. Mark still needs Eduardo. This works for them. Fix-it. For <a href="http://mark-eduardo.livejournal.com/368440.html?thread=2414136#t2414136">this prompt</a> for the <a href="http://mark-eduardo.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://mark-eduardo.livejournal.com/"><b>mark_eduardo</b></a> <a href="http://mark-eduardo.livejournal.com/368440.html">prompt fest</a>: Horny Mark wants Eduardo to punish him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hurt you more than it hurts me

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning/kinks:** Established relationship, caning, angst, romance, hurt/comfort, implications of past child abuse. Skip to end for spoilery version.
> 
> Reposted with some additions so it’s slightly longer than the original. Unbetaed so if there are any mistakes, please let me know. I tried to fill the prompt as best as I could but because it’s me, this is how it turns out - with a lot more angst than it warrants. I don’t even know what kind of kink this is. It’s a caning fix-it?

Mark is quiet, his face buried in one of Eduardo’s pillows.

Eduardo can see the evenly spaced lines on his ass, red and tender. Each time he runs his palms, up and down over the welts they ripen. Mark shudders and muffles his moans as he tries to lie still on a fluffy skyscraper while Eduardo draws long lines on his skin with a rattan cane.

(They tried it with Mark on his hands and knees but Mark kept moving and the devastating finishing stroke that was meant for the lowest part of his ass landed mid-thigh and Mark had made a strangled sound and the welt did not disappear for weeks.)

In his hand, Eduardo has a medium-sized cane from the dollar store. (The heavier canes bruised Mark too severely and the lighter ones drew blood too easily.) This cane is one Mark bought because “I tried it on my palm and it seemed okay. Wardo, we live in Singapore and they have them everywhere if you ask.” Eduardo tries not to panic about someone else knowing or thinking about what Mark wanted it for. If Eduardo has to, he orders them online under fake names and when they arrive Mark hands it to Eduardo with a patented roll of his eyes.

Eduardo hits him with the cane until the welts edge into a deep pink that won’t fade and the cuts on the fleshiest part of Mark’s bottom look wet with blood under the skin. He tries to avoid hitting the same place twice and tries even harder not to break the skin. Eduardo has trained himself to be painstakingly accurate. He has been on the receiving end enough times to know that it’s never pleasant to have your welts cross and that an accidental hit is worse than an intentional one. At least then you don’t have the regret that isn’t really regret.

The problem is Mark isn’t a huge guy. There is only so much room to work with after a while. He refuses to go higher than an inch and a half below the start of Mark’s crack because he is not going to risk permanent injury. Before he begins, Eduardo always runs the tips of his fingers down the line of Mark’s spine to feel where Mark’s tailbone ends just to be sure. Sometimes he does this several times, using the rhythmic, soft stroking to sooth Mark. So there is nothing he can do about going over the same lines unless he starts on Mark’s thighs. He’s tried lighter hits there but Mark has always been very pale and bruises easily. The weals mar Mark’s skin for longer than Eduardo remembers, for longer than they should and Eduardo hates seeing the stripes show beneath Mark’s boxers. It makes him feel like he’s been sloppy and unnecessarily cruel.

“More.”

Eduardo has filled in the last gap amongst Mark’s ladder of welts and is unsatisfied because the ridge of one welt touches another. He can’t remember whether it was his aim or Mark shifting. Maybe he should restrain Mark. When he touches Mark’s ass, the skin is heated and tightening as the welts swell up and he knows Mark is going to be sore.

“Mark,” Eduardo begins and never knows how to finish when Mark is in this mood.

Mark twists to look over his shoulder. “Do it,” Mark grits out. He’s not looking at Eduardo but at the state of his penance. Eduardo doesn’t know what he’s checking for – is he hitting too hard? Not hard enough?

Eduardo shakes his head even though Mark won’t see it.

It’s easy to give Mark what he wants. It’s always been easier than fighting it. So Eduardo fills in old hurts until they are renewed. He taps the cane along the line of a welt until the pattern is blurred and it is dark and ugly.

He pushes his thumb into it and Mark groans.

(Mark has told him that he doesn’t get off on the pain so much as the release of pain. _It hurts yeah but then I feel like it’s over and I don’t have to feel bad about it anymore._ He said this like it was normal to talk about this during dinner and Eduardo almost choked on a sweet potato.)

“Keep going,” Mark says in a hoarse voice.

Eduardo is skeptical but he does, stepping forward so the tip of the cane digs into the opposite cheek. He steps back again since that’s where that damage tends to be the deepest. It’s hard to aim so the force splits even between both cheeks but Eduardo does his best. He leaves several short but severe welts on Mark’s left buttock and it has Mark’s hands twisting in the sheets. The line of Mark’s back stiffens then relaxes with each blow. Eduardo keeps the pace steady so Mark can anticipate the pain. If there is a quick flurry of strokes, he asks him if he’s ready, if he’s up for it. He’s not out to torture Mark. This is what Mark wants.

Eduardo does change it up a little tapping a little higher but actually aiming lower and the surprise of the pain makes Mark’s breathing hitch. Eduardo changes sides for two cuts even though it’s awkward and Eduardo has to kneel on the bed. The pair of strokes have Mark rocking involuntarily into the pillow, grunting with the blows. Mark lets out a ragged breath when Eduardo drags the top of the cane across the tramlines on his buttocks, sticking it inbetween his cheeks as Eduardo touches him both for gauging the damage and just to make Mark shiver and sigh from his hands caressing the puffy welts. The faultless double barcode pattern has long been messed up.

Eduardo taps Mark at the most sensitive part, his sit spot and hears Mark tense. He keeps hitting lightly until Mark is forced to let out a breath.

It’s unfortunate that it is easier to aim a stroke more accurately with sufficient force behind it. Because there’s intent and aim and it’s enough to elicit a muffled cry.

(He never means to but he wonders if he does because he wants it to be over and he wants-)

The skin breaks open where the force of the hit was strongest, on Mark’s right side. It doesn’t gush but tiny dots of blood well to the surface, a tiny trickle along a straight line.

Eduardo stares at it and he knows the blood is going to start dripping down Mark’s pale thigh, a stark red on creamy skin, ready to stain the sheets.

“Fuck.”

“Don’t stop,” Mark urges, sounding breathless.

It’s easy to give Mark what he wants but Eduardo refuses to go past this point.

“No.”

“Please,” Mark gasps. “I can take it.”

 _But I can’t,_ Eduardo thinks.

He doesn’t want to see blood dripping down Mark’s thigh. He doesn’t want to see bloody welts on Mark. It’s a picture he’s seen before, in the mirror, curiosity edging into horror.

“No,” Eduardo says, putting the cane down. He’s done.

Mark turns over gingerly but eagerly, leaving most of his weight on his back, his welted ass in the air facing Eduardo.

“Blow me.”

Mark always makes it so easy for Eduardo to give.

(They worked out Mark isn’t in the mood for fucking Eduardo because he just wants to be taken care of and that Mark getting fucked right after fell on the edge of uncomfortable and unsexy, too much too soon. Mark can probably take it but Eduardo will keep asking Mark if he’s okay and it just doesn’t work with them both trying to be careful with each other. It feels too much like they’ve fucked up.)

Eduardo will take his time, swallowing Mark down slowly as he takes him apart this way. He mouths at Mark’s cock, nuzzling at his balls. When Mark is begging him, he puts his slick fingers into Mark, letting Mark rock onto them and thrust into his mouth. Eduardo keeps his fingers carefully on unmarked skin, the welts he put on Mark still purpling around him. Eduardo licks along Mark’s welts, seeing the equals sign stamped on Mark’s skin over and over. When he breathes on the wet skin, Mark’s hips thrust upward and he’ll begin to speak gibberish, half-broken apologies and pleas.

Sometimes Eduardo will stall him, making sure to go over each painful weal until Mark’s face is wet with sweat or tears or both. Most of the time, Eduardo will give in and he will take Mark into his mouth again until Mark comes, hot and thick.

(It’ll only take one stroke to make Eduardo come too.)

After a nap or after Mark has caught his breath, whichever is longest, Eduardo gets out his healing supplies which are in his top drawer with the lube.

When Eduardo wipes the cut clean and applies the antiseptic, Mark makes a tiny noise that Eduardo doesn’t know whether it’s from pain or pleasure and maybe it doesn’t matter. It will scab over and leave a scar. It’ll be barely noticeable except that Eduardo always notices. (He wonders if-

it’s not the same. He vows that it will never be the same.)

Then Eduardo traces his fingers lightly through each and every stripe with his balm and wishes he could make Mark better the way Mark believes he does. For the darkest ones that almost blend together, Eduardo regrets them. He always does.

“Thank you, Wardo,” Mark says with a soft sigh.

Eduardo replies with a hum because it feels awkward to be thanked when he feels like he should be the one thanking Mark.

(He is thankful that Mark never mentions how Wardo asks for it too in stuttering tones that make no sense. _Mark, can I-_ Eduardo still can’t get the words out but somehow Mark knows and he will bend over or roll over and let Eduardo get him comfortable.)

Eduardo feels like a terrible person for wanting it, even worse since- knowing the things that he does. He knows how it feels to have the cane cut into tender flesh, the sting of an open cut and he does it to Mark. He can’t explain it (he wants, he doesn’t want, he needs) and Mark doesn’t care.

(The broken cane lies discarded on the floor and it’s Eduardo who feels broken. It’s Mark who tells him it's okay when he should be the one comforting Mark.

 _Stop blaming yourself. I wanted it, Wardo. I asked for it. We don’t have to do this again if you don’t want to but you need to know that I wanted it, I really wanted it and I still do._ )

(It’ll take two weeks for Mark to be a blank slate again. In the meantime, Eduardo will take care of him and he will marvel at how Mark lets him do it to him.)

Mark makes happy little noises of relief at the cool gel on his healing hurts. Most times, the soft touch on sensitive skin is enough to make Mark wriggle his hips suggestively and Eduardo will smile. Sometimes Eduardo pre-empts it, his fingers dipping Mark’s crack testing, teasing and Mark will push up against his fingers with a soft whine. Then Eduardo fingers him thoroughly until Mark pushes Eduardo down, pinning his hands above him with a smirk and crawling on top of him.

And then it’s easy and it doesn’t hurt at all.

(He knows he can ask Mark not to ask him for this. He could but he doesn’t, doesn’t need to.)

Knowing Mark, it’s logical that it happens this way. Mark wants to be hurt because he knows he hurt Eduardo. He trusts Eduardo. This is showing that he trusts Eduardo.

( _“It’s not like I don’t get anything out of it okay? Don’t make me say it again,” Mark flushes red. “It’s just…it works for me.”_ )

But he hurt Mark too. He has had enough of asking for beatings and he never wants to.

Mark does not ask him to and he cannot be more pathetically grateful.

This Mark is different from the Mark he first met. This Mark is a little older and he does not just take from Eduardo. He gives and he gets and he waits. Yet this is the same Mark who would not leave him alone in Singapore and pursued him with the intensity of the boy he knew from Kirkland.

They are still on opposite sides of the equal sign, destined to be solution and answer in an equation with infinite unknowns. They’ll always be working to lower the debts between them. It’s never going to be perfect. They are always going to hurt each other one way or another. But they’ve worked this part out. The guilt and the pain of past betrayals – it doesn’t have to break them. It doesn’t have to be hidden, held inside. It can be controlled, released. It is imbued in welts and bruises and made good by love and patience.

(In this, Mark has always been ahead of him. He knows he just has to ask to get what he needs. Eduardo is still working on the asking.)

“This is good,” Mark says with another contented sigh before resting his head on his pillow so he’s facing Eduardo even though he’s lying on his front.

Eduardo doesn’t know how he doesn’t get neck cricks like that. He looks at Mark, his head of curly hair and the satisfied smile on his face and he can feel a tug inside his chest.

Sometime later, Mark catches Eduardo looking at him with sorrowful eyes.

“Stop it. Stop thinking about it. I’m more than the sum of the welts on my ass,” Mark says dryly. More gently, “C’mon, make me feel better then.”

And Mark will crowd into Eduardo and worm his hands up in his shirt. He will lean on Eduardo so that Eduardo has to catch him, arms around his waist.

Perhaps that’s the best part of what Mark asks from him, what Mark gives him – a way to make it better.  


**Author's Note:**

> The caning gets really intense with a bit of blood.


End file.
